Lessons from Miss Patty
by Linda Jade Fong
“Espresso beans saved us,” Patty told me. It was 1999 and she, Binx Selby, and I had worked for months putting together an application for a charter school—one of the first in Arizona. The charter would convert the Montessori school that the three of us had just founded in Patagonia to a public school. “Uh oh,” she exclaimed in her call to us. “We missed this. The form wants us to attach a business plan!” The deadline was tomorrow and Patty had never laid eyes on a business plan before. Binx and I were out of the country, so we were on the phonethroughout the night as Patty frantically scribbled down notes and numbers.
By the next afternoon, she was headed off in her little burgundy Kia to Phoenix. “I chewed espresso beans nonstop all the way there, to keep me awake,” she laughingly admitted. “I parked and ran up to the State Charter Board office and stepped through the doors at 4:00—right at the deadline!”
That was vintage Patricia O’Dea, who died in August at age 67 in California, after leaving Patagonia ten years ago due to early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Her overdrive dedication and eager willingness to take on anything was legendary. But even beyond that was her heart.
“She appreciated everything,” says Blanca Vasquez, her longtime co-teacher. “She put her heart into everything, whether it was school or a friend. She had a big heart for everyone.”
Patty was born and raised in southern California, where she first started teaching in the Montessori system. When she came to Arizona, she worked with Blanca at Peggy Jelk’s Casa Loma Montessori in Nogales and Rio Rico. Peggy decided to close down the school in 2000, and our solution was to start a new school in Patagonia for Patty to teach elementary and Blanca preschool. We found a rundown, vacant storefront on Naugle Street, and Patty’s eyes lit up. As parents and colleagues David and Anita Clovesko-Wharton, recall, “Patty was one of the most creative people either one of us have ever worked with.” Children with paint brushes in hand and community helpers got the building renovated in record time for school opening.
Patty kept stretching herself each new step, even adding a middle school. 80-hour weeks became the pattern for the two of us the first couple years. She helped secure both a $900,000 grant and land for the school. Binx had to go through a one-year process of annexing and completely developing the 40-acre Bryant property — on paper — to establish its highest value for raising tax credit funds to purchase it for the school. Patty was working at a reduced salary, yet she scraped together personal funds to aid the effort.
In the beginning, eight students came from as far away as Rio Rico and Tumacacori, one even moving here, because of Patty. One of them was Ryan Blake, son of the late Patagonia School Superintendent, Denise Blake. Denise once told me she saw five-year-old Ryan standing on the beach waving his arms at his side. “He said he was ‘sending peace’, and I just knew that was Patty-inspired.”
On the academic side, one of Patty’s proudest moments was when a second grade class took the state standardized reading tests, and all of them, even the ones new to English, tested at grade level or above, up to Grade 5. It was a joy when Patty was recognized with a national teacher award of a bicycle trip to Italy.
Besides the long hours at school, Patty could be seen throughout town teaching tai chi in the park, joining hiking and potluck groups, and cheering on any children’s or community event.
“She was always happy,” remarks Blanca. Binx says that to watch the complete connection Patty made with each person she was talking to, whether adult or child, was “a spiritual experience in itself.”
Her whole being was a smile that radiated from her heart. She did everything with love, and that is a precious legacy for her students and friends.